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With a global market valued at approximately $10.5 billion in 2012 and expected to reach $32 billion by 2019, the economic lens is the most practical one to view Indian MVT {Medical Value Travel}. India is one of the three main Asian medical tourism destinations, along with Singapore and Thailand. And India’s network of corporate hospitals and travel facilitators boasts a current MVT market valued at $3 billion a year and expected to reach $8 billion annually by 2020.

But in order to optimize its use of medical tourism as a growing contributor to economic growth, like in many other areas of its economy, the Indian government would have to exercise much greater strategic coordination, streamline regulations, and improve data collection, which already occur in other countries known for MVT, such as Thailand and Singapore.

By the end of my month at Apollo, I noticed a similar interesting paradox in India’s medical tourism market as a whole: it has the potential to be part of India’s greater narrative of growth and technological success, while at the same time highlighting the very symptoms which describe why that overarching success may continue to stay just outside of the country’s reach.

India’s health care sector is poised at a crossroads, and the direction taken now will be critical in determining its trajectory for years to come. In a recent Brookings India paper on the Indian government’s health care policy, we argue that it should prioritize expanding and effectively delivering those aspects of health that fall under the definition of “public goods’” for example, vaccination, health education, sanitation, public health, primary care and screening, family planning through empowering women, and reproductive and child health.

If done well, our street food alone will be a big tourist attraction. At last, somebody is taking care of this issue. In Bengaluru, there is an area called VV Puram and its a street food paradise. Lets create "street food streets" in every big town and multiple in a city.

Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare Shri J P Nadda launched Project Clean Street Food in the presence of Shri Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Union Minister of State for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (Independent Charge), here today. The project of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) aims at to raise the safety standards of foods sold on streets across the capital city of New Delhi by training 20,000 roadside vendors on aspects of health and hygiene, in the first phase.

As part of Project Clean Street Food, FSSAI will partner with the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship to train street food vendors at more than 40 centres across Delhi under the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) category of the Governments flagship skills training scheme- Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY).

Health Minister J.P. Nadda called it an ‘historic moment’ for the country, adding that the launch of Rotavac was “a new milestone towards expanding the coverage of full immunisation in the country aimed at reducing child mortality”.

Diarrhoea caused by Rotavirus is one of the leading causes of severe diarrhoea and death among children less than five years of age. In India, between 80,000 to one lakh children die due to Rotavirus diarrhoea annually while nearly 9 lakh children are admitted to hospital with severe diarrhoea. Another 32.7 lakh children visit the hospital as out patients due to the disease.

The vaccine was being introduced initially in four States — Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Odisha — and would be expanded to the entire country in a phased manner, Mr. Nadda said. “Adding this life-saving vaccine to our immunisation programme will not only improve the health of our children but also reduce hospitalisation and other conditions associated with diarrhoea due to Rotavirus such as malnutrition, delayed physical and mental development among children. Reduced hospitalisation lower the economic burden on the family and the health cost burden on the country,” he added. The Rotavirus vaccine was developed indigenously, under a public-private partnership between the Ministry of Science Technology and the Health Ministry.

The Rotavac is in addition to three new vaccines that have been introduced in India’s Universal Immunis-ation Programme (UIP) including Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV), Measles, Rubella (MR) vaccine, and Adult Japanese Encephalitis (JE) vaccine. With these new vaccines, India’s UIP will provide free vaccines against 12 life threatening diseases, to 27 million children annually, the largest birth cohort in the world. The IPV was intro-duced in six States from Nov. 30, 2015 for double protection against polio.

Both IDPL and HA are doing well and are making large volumes of generic drugs and also some primary products for the national and international market. Their real thrust is in low cost drugs for national programs.

prasannasimha wrote:Both IDPL and HA are doing well and are making large volumes of generic drugs and also some primary products for the national and international market. Their real thrust is in low cost drugs for national programs.

Thanks, nice to know that some public sector units are doing well, and that too with very little publicity!

After one such tiring training session nearly five years ago, the surgeon briefed engineers in the department of engineering design at IIT-Madras about the need for devices that can help people like him. Two years ago, an M Tech student in the department of engineering design at IIT-Madras decided to develop a clamp for micro vascular surgeries as a part of his engineering project. "I spent several days listening to doctors and watched them perform surgeries. I realised that the procedure was complex and long because the blood vessels collapse when they suture it," said Anand Parikh.

Clamps are used to stop blood flow into vessels that need to be sutured. Traditionally, once a doctor clips the vessels with these clamps, it shrinks, making it tough for doctors to do the end-to-end stitches. Nstomoz was developed to ensure that the vessel does not collapse. This innovation won the Gandhian Young Technological Innovation (GYTI) Award for the product at earlier this month.

In laboratory conditions, the clamp was found to help surgeons suture vessels at twice the speed of the conventional method. The team is now looking at manufacturing these surgical clamps for the market. "We have filed for two patents. The product will be launched from the incubation ecosystem of IIT Madras," said department of engineering design professor Venkatesh Balasubramanian.

Recently, a few Indian pharmaceutical companies were reported as being given "Establishment Inspection Reports" by, who else, the US FDA.

Why don't we hear of such reports from Japanese inspectors, or Brazilian, Russian, Nigerian, Australian, Mongolian et al? Surely, these countries want to be sure of what they are importing, don't they? Or do they have some other method?

Hyderabad on “high alert” for potential polio outbreak. Officials announced on Wednesday that a strain of active, vaccine-derived type 2 polio virus had been found in the water at a sewage treatment plant in Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana state in southern India that is home to over seven million people. Twenty-four sections of the city have been declared “most-sensitive areas” for a future outbreak. This discovery has prompted a precautionary vaccination drive that will begin Monday and reach 300,000 children, according to a statement from India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Thanks to collaboration between federal and state governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and non-profit organizations, India detected its last case of polio in West Bengal in 2011 and was declared polio-free in 2012. Despite this success story, experts such as regional health officer Rajesh Singh have expressed mounting concern: “When the vaccine is given through the mouth, the liquid that gets dissolved and passed on in the form of stool accumulates in the sewage system. The virus in that vaccine becomes a stronger and more resistant strain.”

Prices of over 50 essential drugs including those used for treatment of HIV infection, diabetes, anxiety disorders, bacterial infections, angina and acid reflux have been capped by the government, leading to a price cut in the range of 5 per cent to 44 per cent. The National Drug Pricing Regulator has also fixed the retail prices of 29 formulations.

Any reason why we only read of the US FDA inspecting and critiquing, if not sanctioning, Indian pharmaceutical firms? In the last few days, yet another Indian drug company, Divi Labs, came under scrutiny. And Divi, far as I know, was a company that was praised for its management and quality a few years ago.

Does anyone know of Japanese, Vietnamese, Russian, British, et al doing the same. I do know of one case of GVK Pharma being sanctioned by the European Union, but that is very rare. It's almost always the US doing it.

Pawan Kalyan’s visit to north coastal Andhra Pradesh has once again brought to fore the vexed issue of dozens of villages in several mandals of Srikakulam district suffering from Chronic Kidney Disease of unknown etiology (CKD).

The problem is so serious that it has attracted international concern. Even World Health Organisation (WHO) has taken up the problem. The epidemic is called Uddanam Nephropathy. This nomenclature was adopted at the 2013 World Congress of Nephrology.

Estimates suggest that about 4,500 people died of renal failure in the last decade in this region. Even conservative estimates suggest that a third of population in Uddanam region suffers from CKD. Around 120 villages in six mandals are affected by CKD. The endemic mandals are Itchapuram, Kanchili, Kaviti, Mandasa, Sompeta and Vajrapu Kotthuru.

The traditional causes of CKD include diabetes, hypertension, primary glomerular disease, or obstructive nephropathy. But, the CKD found in Uddanam region is not attributed to any of these reasons.

The causes of Uddanam nephropathy still remain elusive despite several studies. Writing in the ‘American Journal of Kidney Disease,’ Anirban Ganguli, Georgetown University (May 2016), says, “Although the association of specific occupations with endemic nephropathy has highlighted the issue of environmental toxins and heat stress, the cause of Uddanam nephropathy is still an enigma.”

World Health Organization congratulates India for launching one of the world’s largest vaccination campaign against measles, a major childhood killer disease, and congenital rubella syndrome (CRS), responsible for irreversible birth defects.

The campaign launched today to vaccinate more than 35 million children in the age group of nine months to 15 years with MR (measles and rubella) vaccine, once again demonstrates India’s commitment to improve health and well-being of its people by protecting children against vaccine preventable diseases.

The first phase of the campaign is significant as it is expected to accelerate the country’s efforts to eliminate measles which affects an estimated 2.5 million children every year, killing nearly 49 000 of them. The campaign also marks the introduction of rubella vaccine in India’s childhood immunization programme to address CRS which causes birth defects such as irreversible deafness and blindness in nearly 40 000 children every year.

India has made important efforts and gains against measles in recent years. Measles deaths have declined by 51% from an estimated 100 000 in the year 2000 to 49 000 in 2015. This has been possible by significantly increasing the reach of the first dose of measles vaccine, given at the age of nine months under routine immunization programme, from 56% in 2000 to 87% in 2015. In 2010 India introduced the second dose of measles-containing vaccine in routine immunization programme to close the immunity gap and accelerate measles elimination. Nearly 118 million children aged nine months to 10 years were vaccinated during mass measles vaccination campaigns between 2010 and 2013 in select states of India.

Today’s campaign, the first in the series to cover a total of 410 million children across the country over the next 2 years, is a truly remarkable, world-beating effort. Apart from improving the life-chances of millions of children in India, the campaign is expected to have a substantial effect on global measles mortality and rubella control target as India accounts for 37% of global measles deaths.

Cancer drugs, being the top focus for research and development, corner the lion's share of medicines launched globally, yet only a handful make it to developing countries like India.Only seven oncology drugs were introduced in India over five years (2010-2014), when nearly 50 breakthrough therapies were rolled out globally.

For instance, we have only 2,000 oncologists in India whereas the number of cancer patients amounts to over 10 million.

Earlier this month, a team of young doctors from Medanta: The Medicity in Gurgaon on the outskirts of the capital successfully performed a surgery on the failing spine of a woman and inserted for the first time a 3D printed titanium implant giving the woman a completely new lease of life.

Almost miraculously four days after the surgery, the woman was walking. Had traditional surgical techniques been adopted, according to the doctors she would have walked after months.

Dr Naresh Trehan, founder of Medanta, said, "3D printing technology has opened up whole new vista to re-create body parts to save lives."

If the risk of rejection of printed parts is low, we should encourage growth of this technology. 3D printed body parts may well save lives when no donors are available.

It seems ears and spines have been made, but parts which need more vascularisation are tougher to make. Anyone want to elaborate on what that means?

One really exciting application of 3D printing is the generation of body parts. The level of detail that this technology can produce often supersedes that of traditional methods, offering patients a superior fit or design, and they can often be produced at an impressively low cost.

Researchers have turned to 3D printing to produce a wide variety of body parts. Around two weeks ago we heard the story of a teenager who received a 3D printed bright pink robotic prosthetic arm to replace the arm that she lost in a boating accident many years ago. The arm, which was produced by a trio of biomedical engineering students at Washington University in St. Louis, only cost $200 in total; a fraction of the normal cost of prosthetics which are usually a minimum of $6,000. The recipient, Sydney Kendall, could use shoulder movements to manipulate the arm to perform tasks such as throwing a ball and moving a computer mouse.

Bhutan, Maldives eliminate measles, India on the road to stopping new infectionBhutan and Maldives have eliminated measles, a highly infectious infection that kills 134,000 persons, mostly children under-5 years, worldwide each year. The two countries have completely stopped virus transmission, with no indigenous measles case being reported in Maldives since 2009, and in Bhutan since 2012.

In India. 90% children receive the first dose of MMR under the universal immunistaion programme, but only 50% receive the booster dose.

My learning is 1. 100 pc inoculation with booster2. Stop open defecation3. Slaughter the pigs from roaming in the fields to eat human faeces4. Build at least one more large and modern hospital in each district of India.